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So would I, thought Annie, staring at her reflection in the mirror in front of which she sat. She was having a cut built up on her cheek; it had to match identically with the cut she had had there on Friday. Deirdre, the girl working on it, paused, her brush in her hand, to look down at a colour polaroid she had taken of the cut after she finished building it up the first time. Annie had only been in the chair for twenty minutes and it could sometimes take hours to create a make-up. It was six o’clock and outside it was still dark. She wanted desperately to go back to sleep but instead she mentally ran through her words again. She had a big scene coming up; they had only rehearsed sketchily, and the moves would be much harder to remember than the words, so it helped to know your part before you began, then you could concentrate on getting the moves right.
Outside she could hear the stentorian roar of the unit producer, Frank Goodwin, a big man with a beer gut and a grin wider than a house.
‘Shift those bloody vans! We need room for the dolly to go through there. And don’t take all day over it! The market will be waking up any minute now and we need to be ready before the first stalls arrive. God, it is perishing. Whose brilliant idea was it to shoot at this hour of the bloody morning? And will ‘somebody get those braziers working?’
They were shooting in Middlesex Street, one of London’s oldest and most famous street markets, popularly known as Petticoat Lane because it had once sold largely clothes.
Working in a real location was always tough. People resented you getting in the way, you had to combat exterior noise, voices, traffic, planes overhead, and the public tended to stand about and stare, and even shout out comments, or laugh, which made things difficult for the soundman and cameraman.
Despite the difficulties, real locations was one of the secrets of the success of their TV series.
The Force was a police series that went out twice weekly, using the City of London as their living backcloth. Where you had crowds, you always had crime, their police adviser had told them, which was why they were here, in the busiest weekend market in London.
‘I missed you in wardrobe – can I just check you?’
Annie blinked at the continuity girl and smiled at her. ‘Oh, hi, Joan. Yes, sure.’
Joan looked down at the clipboard she held and muttered under her breath. ‘Grey suit, white shirt, black stockings, black shoes … are those the same shoes you wore on Friday?’
Annie nodded.
‘Don’t move the head!’ Deirdre moaned, jumping back with her brush held up in front of her.
‘Sorry.’ Annie gave her an apologetic grin in the mirror, making sure not to move her head again.
‘Not ready yet?’ another voice said from the door of the caravan, and in the mirror Annie saw Harriet, the series producer, frowning at her.
‘I’m going as fast as I can!’ Deirdre muttered. ‘It isn’t my fault we keep getting interrupted.’ She glared at the continuity girl, who glared back.
‘We’ve all got our job to do! And it isn’t easy out on location!’
‘Don’t be so ratty, the pair of you!’ said Harriet cheerfully. She wore a thick workman’s jacket over jeans, a thin cotton top, a thin sweater and then another sweater, because it was freezing out in the street at this hour of the morning and the more layers of clothes you wore the better. Her knee-high black leather boots lined with fur kept her feet warm however long she had to stand around.
The clothes suited Harriet, who was as slim as a boy, wore her dark brown hair cut very short, tucked behind her ears, and had the calm, smooth face of a nun, a face which hid her true nature: her driving energy, her ambition, her sense of humour and her toughness.
‘Looking good, darling, for six o’clock in the morning!’ she said now, grinning at Annie in the mirror.
‘Well, I feel like death. I could do with another couple of hours in bed,’ groaned Annie.
‘Who couldn’t? That’s the business. Know your lines, I hope?’
Annie gave her a thumbs-up.
‘Good for you.’ Harriet patted her on the shoulder. ‘I hope to Christ Mike does. He isn’t even here yet. He was out with that new ASM last night – the little redhead straight from training school.’
Annie rolled her eyes in mock disgust and Harriet laughed.
‘Right. We all knew he?
?d make a play for her the minute we set eyes on her, didn’t we? Just up Mike’s street, another rabbit for him to bowl over. Well, I suppose it’s all experience.’
‘Do we shoot round him?’ asked Annie as the make-up girl stepped back to admire her finished handiwork. Staring at her own reflection, Annie said, ‘That’s great, Dee. I feel quite sorry for myself with a nasty cut like that.’
‘Suits you!’
‘Oh, thanks!’
Deirdre grinned at her and moved off to deal with another actress.
